src/swipl-devel/bench/README.md

In rswipl: Embed 'SWI'-'Prolog'

SWI-Prolog benchmark suite

This set of benchmarks started as the `van Roy' benchmarks for Prolog. They are designed to cover a large number of aspects, both small-scale and large(r) scale programs. All benchmarks are pure Prolog; i.e., there are no constraints, etc. Another problem with this data is that the programs are rather old, generally not using modern libraries and often avoiding GC because some old implementations did not provide it. Also many todays application manage a lot of text, often using atoms. None of the benchmarks is concerned with that.

Each test is a non-modular program that provides a single predicate top/0. The driver run.pl loads all programs in their own module. I modified most of the driver. The toplevel is run(+Factor). Each test is callibrated to be run approximately the same time. Factor scales the number of iterations. Factor=1 is callibrated for 1 second per benchmark on an AMD3950X, SWI-Prolog 8.5.2, GCC-11 using CMake build type RelWithDebInfo

In addition to the `van Roy' benchmarks, various benchmarks have been added to extend the coverage of this benchmark set. Good coverage is important to maximize the benefits of Program Guided Optimization (PGO). See CMAKE.md, CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=PGO

Running

To run the benchmark suite with SWI-Prolog, simply run the command below. The benchmarks are calibrated to take about 1 second each on SWI-Prolog 8.5.2. You can speedup the run using --speedup=Times, e.g.

swipl run.pl --speedup=10

To create a clustered histogram comparing multiple systems run e.g.

swipl compare.pl --speedup=10 swi gprolog

Any number of systems may be specified. Use swipl compare.pl -l to see the available systems and the Porting section below for adding systems. The results are saved into bench.svg. Use the command below for other options.

swipl compare.pl --help

Adding systems ad-hoc

You may want to add versions of your systems for analysis. In that case, create a file extra.pl, adding e.g. the content below. Next run as

swipl extra.pl compare.pl [option...] [system...]

:- multifile
    compare:system/7.

compare:system('swipl-here',
       'SWI-Prolog (../build.pgo/src/swipl, -O)',
       '../build.pgo/src/swipl',
       Speedup,
       ['-O', 'run.pl', '--csv', '--speedup', Speedup],
       [],
       "").

Porting

The current version runs on SWI-Prolog, YAP, SICStus Prolog, Ciao lang, Scryer Prolog and GNU-Prolog, XSB and Trealla Prolog. To get the actual list, run this command to get the system identifiers and their version.

swipl compare.pl -l

There are two routes for running the benchmarks.

• For systems with a Quintus-derived module systems, run.pl can usually deal with loading and configuring the benchmark suite. Currently this supports SWI-Prolog, YAP and SICStus Prolog.

• For other systems we use tools/modularize.pl to qualify all local predicates with their file (base name), such that they can be loaded into the same Prolog instance. We add ports/prepare/<system>.pl to call the modularization, test which benchmarks can be loaded and executed on the target system and finally generate a file that includes all tests and provides a predicate has_program/1 that provides all programs that have been loaded. The prepared system is created in port/programs/<system>

  Next, we provide port/run/<system>.pl that loads the above and provides run(Factor) which runs all benchmarks and writes the CSV output.

When using the second route, proceeds as follows. First, run

swipl port/tools/modularize.pl --dir=port/programs/<system> \
      --include-all=include_all.pl programs/*.pl

Next, you should have port/programs/<system>/include_all.pl. Tweak to get this running on the target system such that e.g., this benchmark runs:

?- 'qsort:top'.

After loading the file, has_program/1 should succeed for every Prolog that can be loaded. Once you know how to do that, copy one of the port/prepare/<system>.pl files. Most contain code that

• Call modularize.pl correctly to get the proper programs
• Evaluate whether a benchmark can be loaded.
• Generate include_all.pl to only include the benchmarks we can run.

Now, copy and edit port/run/<system>.pl and finally extend compare.pl to include the new system.

Legal status

Most of these benchmarks have been written and shared within the Prolog community for a very long time. Unfortunately many of them have no official claim that they can be redistributed under established open source conditions. Note that these files are not part of any binary distribution and are only used for drive PGO optimization. Binary distributions are thus not legally affected by these files.

Non-free

The following programs lack explicit clear conditions that allows redistribution.

Source packages that wish to be sure to only distribute material that complies with open source standards may remove these files using the command below.

rm $(grep '^\s*- [a-z0-9_]*\.pl' README.md | awk '{print $2}')

• boyer.pl
• browse.pl
• crypt.pl
• fast_mu.pl
• flatten.pl
• fib.pl
• meta_qsort.pl
• mu.pl
• nand.pl
• perfect.pl
• pingpong.pl
• poly_10.pl
• prover.pl
• queens_8.pl
• queens_clpfd.pl
• reducer.pl
• sendmore.pl
• simple_analyzer.pl
• tak.pl
• unify.pl
• zebra.pl

rswipl documentation built on April 3, 2025, 5:53 p.m.